Bankers and Party Employees To Face Charges Over Questionable Political Funding

Bank executives and employees of the New Democracy and PASOK parties will soon face criminal charges, Greek media reported on Friday, after financial prosecutors decided to take action on the issue of the two parties’ funding.

Greek prosecutors conducted an investigation of PASOK and New Democracy’s funding from 2005 until 2011 and concluded that certain party employees should face charges for breach of faith regarding loans.

The loans that are in question were granted by the National Bank of Greece, Piraeus, Eurobank, Attica and ATE Bank. The two parties received funds from the state and used their future state funding as collateral or a guarantee that they would repay the bank loans received.

Post Greek financial crisis, it is difficult to see a means for which these two parties could adequetely repay the bank loans that they received.

The investigation had stopped in 2013 but reopened in 2017, after a decision taken by Supreme Court prosecutor Xeni Dimitriou.

Georgios Kaloudis, a prosecutor who conducted the initial report of the case, has already deemed that using future state funding as a guarantee for loan repayments is not an adequate reason for a bank to issue loans.